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There is
only about one comet per decade that shows this strong of an
anti-tail development gracing our skies. This is probably the
most intense one I have ever seen in over 35 years of comet observing.
The false tail, known as an anti tail is simply dust in the comets
orbital plane projected onto the head of the comet. Here, the
true ion tail disconnected a few days ago and hasn't been seen
since. This comet was an easy naked eye sight this morning, around
5th magnitude with the tail easily seen in binoculars.
Here we are tracking
on the comets head during the 40 minutes of exposure time, and
the stars appearing as broken streaks are passing by in a blur.
The small gap in time between the separate 5 minute sub frames
is what gives the stars a dark gap between exposures.
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